‘’Tis not our quarry,’ one of the riders cried, the leader, William thought, for, while his companions’ suits of armour were plain, his was ornate: black enamelled, chased with scrollwork, a wyvern, wings outflung, graved on the cuirass, a sable ostrich-feather plume adorning the helm. His steed’s armour was also black tinted.
He turned to William.
‘Something direful is abroad this night. Seek refuge, while you can.’
William could only catch odd glimpses, through the chargers’ moiling shanks and hocks, of the rabble following the knights, but, from what he could see, they seemed a disparate company: teenagers with facial piercings; suited businessmen and women; construction workers, still wearing overalls, hard hats, reflective jackets; a gaggle of young women in short skirts, barefoot, heels in their hands, all wearing either Devil’s horns or rabbit ears, save one in a tiara, who wore a sash with, ‘A right to wear white (honest)’, written on it, a hen party; a few couples in evening dress; white-haired pensioners; vagrants, unwashed, unkempt, wearing shabby cast-offs, the men with matted beards. All in contemporary dress. William was bemused.
The knights backed, turned their mounts, rode a little distance off. It seemed they were holding council. One of the mob neared William, helped him to his feet. It was the butcher he’d passed earlier.
‘What’s all this?’ William asked.
‘You’d best stick with us,’ was the reply. Actually, it came out a little like, ‘You’d betht thtick with uth,’ he had a slight lisp, his cleft lip. ‘For your own safety.’
‘Is this a film shoot? A historical re-enactment?’
The butcher waved his hand, dismissed the enquiry.
‘Will you join the hunt?’ he asked. ‘In numbers we can’t come to harm.’
William shook his head, squinted at the butcher.
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘There’s a thing. A monster. Its lair’s on the Heath. Children. It preys on children. But it’ll eat any flesh. It’s hungry. Ravening. It’ll eat animals, anything, but…It’s got a taste, you know? It’s already taken ten.’
He paused to draw breath, and William broke in.
‘What are you on about?’
‘Hear me out. Ten. Six kids, three young women, an infirm old man. It’s strong, but goes after the weak. We mean to stop it before it kills again.’
The throng had clustered round, peered at William. A young woman in scraps of gaudy, one of the hens, screeched, ‘It’ll tear your ’eart out.’
She clawed at her sternum. She’d a tattoo the same as the butcher’s, but more distinct, below her left collarbone. The blade hung down. He now saw the marking was a medieval broadsword.
An older man, suave, wearing a dinner suit, pointed, chuckled, ‘Here. I think he’s getting rather an eyeful.’
The hens all cackled.
‘So ’e is, cheeky fucker. Looking at me tits, yeah? Like what yer see?’
‘Leave him alone,’ the butcher said. ‘He’s alright. He’s one of us now.’
An old man dressed, absurdly, in a tweed suit and deerstalker, spoke up, tremulous, ‘Look here, I think they’ve bally well reached a decision.’
The knights approached at a slow trot. All turned to face them. Drawing near, the riders reined in their mounts, and the knight in black armour raised a gauntleted hand. Looking about him at the band, who gawped up at the knight, William realized all bore the sword tattoo. The knight began to bellow.
‘My friends, the thing we hunt is not one of God’s creatures, but a demon!’
A wood pigeon cooed.
‘Born in a lake of fire and spewed forth from the abyss to wreak havoc on the world. It must be stopped!’
There was clapping, and a shout went up.
‘It is vile. Predacious, cruel. Knows no pity, has all the dread strength Perdition could gift it.’
William looked about at the party. All cowered in fear.
‘But we fight for the Lamb! And this will be our talisman!’
He drew a broadsword from the scabbard that hung at his waist, raised it over his head, grasping the blade, pommel to the sky, then, lifting his brand aloft, held it behind; a crucifix, stark against the flames. The gaggle cheered. William, discomfited, sidled through the press to its edge.
The leader sheathed his weapon, spread his arms.
‘We must be as a light to chase away the shadows from this land,’ he went on.
At that moment, an anguished howl was carried to them on the breeze. There was tumult. William saw his chance, legged it.
But he didn’t get far, only about halfway up Parliament Hill; one of the knights vaulted into the saddle, rode him down.
‘You will bide with us till this thing is done. You cannot evade your charge.’
‘What? What are you on about? Let me go!’
The knight took out his blade, jabbed at William’s chest.
‘Nay,’ he growled. ‘And we will brook no refusal.’
William pleaded, but the rider herded him back to the group. When he was in the fold once more, the Black Knight went on.
‘The hell-spawn will feel the bite of steel this night.’
He cupped his hand to the side of the helmet, cocked his head.
‘Hark! That blood-curdling yawp was the last cry of a victim, I warrant it. We must make haste if we are to catch the accursed creature. Let us sally!’
Then, with the flats of their blades, the knights began to drive the rabble on. William was caught up in the stampede.
The hunt rushed pell-mell on, back the way William had come. Drunk, and, in any case, unfit, it wasn’t long before he was struggling for breath, and in spite of the chill air, lathered. His brain panged. Sore weary, he hung his head, kept on. It was some time, then, before he became aware the butcher was scurrying at his side, furtively attempting to attract his attention.
‘What?’ William gasped.
‘You shouldn’t’ve pissed them off.’
William placed his foot clumsily, turned his ankle, stumbled, almost fell. Grabbing his arm, the butcher steadied him. The ruck had continued to hurtle, and, had he fallen, he’d have been trampled.
‘They’re pledged to protect mankind,’ the butcher went on, after a moment.
‘Really?’ William spat. ‘What are you on about?’
But, just then, they passed by a tree he knew, by the shape of its leaves, to be a horse chestnut, and a vivid memory came to him.
As a young boy, conker season had always been William’s favourite time of year. Every autumn, he set aside a Saturday afternoon, which he’d spend throwing a stick again and again into the foliage of a chestnut tree down the road from his childhood home, knocking the seeds from its branches. Sitting, cross-legged, on the ground, he would split the spiny casings, plucking from their corpse-white flesh the prized, glossy nuts. Then he’d return home with the small handful that most nearly resembled the ideal conker he held in his brain. He’d temper the seeds, by roasting, pickling, an esoteric ritual. The pickling took ages, and William found the waiting drear, a strain, spent long stretches gazing at the conkers floating, like specimens in phials, in old jam jars, on shelves in the garden shed. When, finally, the conkers were ready, he’d take great care boring holes in them, then tie them onto lengths of twine. He won all his battles, was, while conker season lasted, undisputed lord of the playground, pestered for his lore, though it was known he’d never reveal it.
What William recalled that night on the Heath, was the season he was finally bested, the year he was cast down, smashed all his jars. That autumn, a new boy had started at his school. Short for his age, shy, named Carol, which the other children thought a girl’s name, a lisper, he was often set on. Though William wasn’t one of the main bullies, he sometimes stood by, chanting taunts, jeering.
Then, one cold morning in October, William arrived at school to find a huddle outside the gates. He could hear shouts, Carol’s, supposed he’d been ganged up on again. But, drawing
nearer, he realized the cries were of glee, not anguish. He joined the throng. They watched, avid, a game of conkers. Carol had been pitted against Steve, the roughest of the school’s bullies, but strangely all the cheering was for the new boy. William soon realized why: Carol’s aim was sure, his blows, stout, his conker, tough. After two strikes the husk of Steve’s nut split, exposing the soft, pale innards. A third smashed it to pieces.
The onlookers cheered, the bully slunk off, shamefaced. Then a girl standing by William called out to Carol, issued a challenge.
‘Bet you can’t beat Will, though. He’s the best conkerer ever.’
Cowed by what he’d seen, William tried to wriggle out of it; with him, he’d only the best conker the tree had yielded that year, a lustrous slogger he’d called Achilles – he was reading a book of simple retellings of Greek myth – and he didn’t want to risk it. But the gang took up the chant, ‘William the Conkerer’, and, sighing, he put down his satchel, took Achilles out, and went up to Carol, feinting. Before beginning, they worked out who’d go first; Achilles was a seasoned veteran of six battles, while Carol’s conker, Paris – a city his family had taken him to that summer – only a two-er, so William was given first go. Carol dangled his chestnut, easy, while William flailed away at it overarm. He struck three clean blows, began to grin, enjoy himself, but then made a bad mistake, missed, got the strings tangled up.
‘Snags,’ Carol piped, gaining the attack.
William’s spirits sagged as Carol’s conker whacked over and over into Achilles, setting it jigging at the end of its string. By the time he got control of the match back, its husk was crackled. On the first attack, Achilles hammered square into Paris, but suffered the worse, then, on the second, glanced off and flew from its string into the watching mob.
‘Stompsies,’ went up the cry.
Picking up his bag, William walked away, briskly, before anyone could see his tears.
(William had strayed, or so we thought; I remember bemused grimaces round the table. It almost seemed like he was taunting, mocking us. It was boring. Rashmi even took the gossip magazine from of her bag again, began openly to read it.
‘Was the butcher Carol?’ Jane asked. ‘You recognized him then?’
William shook his head. ‘No.’ Surly.
Duncan tutted.
William glared.
‘It was so lucid. And it’s part of my tale, picked up later. You’ll see.’
The Scotsman shrugged.
‘I swear! My horror was eerily fitted to me.’
William drew deep on his cigarette, seemed near to tears. Duncan looked away, down at the table, drummed with his fingers on it.
I urged William to go on.
He sniffed, put out his cigarette, resumed.
‘I was lost a moment, and, when I came back to myself, saw the butcher looking oddly at me. I asked him again what he was on about, and he narrowed his eyes, seemed, of a sudden, cagey…’)
‘We’re forbidden from revealing the secrets of our order.’
On hearing the trite stock phrase, William sneered.
(Reflecting on this cagey response of that butcher’s now, I wonder if it was the exploitation of the human desire to be privileged with secret lore that lay behind the power of culture’s institutions. Faith exacted as the price of aped disclosure; mysteries like will-o’-the-wisps enticing the unwary.
When the recondite knowledge was held true by the powerful, as in times of superstition, this was bad enough. But when, as in so-called Enlightened eras, the secrets were fictions thought up solely to compel belief, and the elect, having concocted the age’s truths, scorned them, void and meaninglessness pullulated.)
‘Since I’m here under duress, you know, against my will, the least you could do is tell me what’s going on.’
The butcher frowned.
‘I don’t know any more than you. Some evil thing is loose, and we must kill it.’
The pack, now climbing a hill, had slowed. Breathing a little easier, and headache eased, William felt a throb of sympathy.
‘What are you lot anyway? A cult?’
By way of answer, the butcher gave his name, ‘Thaul’, Saul, told his story.
He’d been a thief, a burglar. Was limber, could swarm up a pipe, climb a trellis, wriggle through a small window, even a dogflap, was, though lowly in the gang, prized by his mates. One day, the gang were tipped off, by their fence, about a haul to be had at a certain church in north London: solid-silver, gemstone studded chalice, paten, crucifixes. They went to break in, on a moonless night. Spotting a lattice window ajar high above, the gang sent Saul shinning up a drainpipe. He’d nearly reached the open casement when the pipe’s rusted bolts sheared. Falling, Saul grabbed at a gargoyle, but the mossy stone was slick. He struck down on a marble slab, a Victorian philanthropist’s stone. With a wet thud and crack. A few months before, he’d dropped a sack, holding a fur coat, a stoneware ewer, and several bottles of wine, onto a patio. The same noise. Blood and matter spattered his pals.
‘Lads, I’m done,’ he tried to say, but he couldn’t speak.
His mates scarpered. Staring up at the night sky, he lay there, a long while, unable to move, in agony, seeking solace in the constellations. They offered none, those faint gleams. Then the pain ebbed, and he knew he didn’t have long. He was very cold.
But then, as the first daylight gilded the spire looming above him, a gaunt figure, dressed like a monk, wearing a habit, face sunk in the gloomy folds of a cowl, approached, knelt down by him. Reaching out, this stranger laid a cold hand on Saul’s forehead, and, in a deep, hoarse voice, urged him to confess. Though he thought the stranger a figment, born of his dying brain, Saul, who’d been brought up Catholic, finding he could talk again, got his sins off his chest. Signing the cross, the stranger absolved him, and warmth and feeling returned to his frame. He got to his feet.
The stranger clasped Saul’s shoulder, asked him his name. On learning it – there was only a little confusion due to Saul’s lisp – the stranger pronounced it a sign. He went on to tell of a fellowship of men and women pledged to ridding London of fiends. Saul butted in, said that, though he’d not return to crime, neither would he turn on old friends.
‘My son. They left you here to die. But, in any case, you misdeem my sense. I do not mean human wrongdoers, but true abominations of the foul Pit.’
‘What?’
‘Demons, son.’
Saul scoffed.
‘But,’ the stranger pressed, ‘you now know the healing power of God’s forgiveness. The malignance of the Enemy does not equal it, but is strong and must be resisted.’
Finally, Saul caved, agreed to attend the next gathering of the defenders.
‘I was convinced by what I saw that night,’ Saul then said. ‘Everyone here has a similar tale.’
Shrugging, William turned away, peered ahead. The rabble had entered a thicket of firs, bracken, brambles, had to pick their way. Underfoot was spongy moss. Small creatures scurried out of their path, and they crossed trampled tracks, signs of larger animals, perhaps badgers and foxes. Now in the van, the riders hacked at the underbrush with their swords.
William didn’t know exactly where they were, but thought probably not far from Kenwood House. He recalled then, with a shudder, the false bridge in grounds of the house, painted wood shamming engraved stone. As a child, he’d often thought there must be a fantastic realm lying on the other side of that bridge, that, if the magic words were said, it’d become solid, and he’d be able to go there.
Saul, angry William was again lost in reverie, prodded his shoulder.
‘The order has had a long, hidden, but lofty history. Its knights have waged war on evil for centuries. This place would’ve long since yielded to darkness if it weren’t for their vigilance.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘You’ll see.’
Just then, the mob entered a glade. One of the knights gave a cry, mingling revulsion and triumph, dismounted.
<
br /> ‘Mark this!’
All gathered round. Two bodies sprawled side by side on the grass. William recognized the lovers he’d come across earlier. The place reeked of slaughter. The man’s clothes had been torn from him, his belly had been slashed, entrails worried, and his hand, pale, tallow, had been torn from his wrist, lay on the grass a short distance off. The woman, aside from the mortal wound, her throat torn out, was untouched. It seemed the kill was fresh, that they’d disturbed the beast, run it off, but William couldn’t shake the feeling it’d simply lost interest, wandered away.
The knights cast about, seeking spoor; one, sighting a print, crowed.
‘Clear sign!’
Then the paladin in black turned to address the pack. At first he couldn’t be heard over the ruckus, the panic, but a cry of, ‘the Black Knight wishes to speak,’ went round, and all fell silent.
‘The demon, knowing it’s hunted, will have gone to ground,’ he said. ‘If we do not tarry, we can track it to its lair.’
The other horsemen circled behind, began to drive the mob forward once more, but the Black Knight rode on ahead. At first, William kept glancing down at the ground as he ran, looking for the trail the hunt followed, but he’d fallen to the rear, couldn’t make anything out amid the welter of prints of those before him. They came out into the open once more, charged across a swathe of grassland, then came to a halt in a hollow before a low granite escarpment, a miry place. William, done in, went down on hunkers.
‘There!’ the leader bellowed, pointing to a crevice in the rock.
William saw a sallow pitted skull, human, lying, canted, in the mud before it, a hole smashed in the brain pan. The Black Knight ranted. Weary, filled with dread, William paid scant attention, but grasped the pith – the demon would be cowering, afraid, a brave stealthy man or woman might steal up, volunteers were urged to speak up, there was glory in it. There was a clamouring, pleading, many wished to be selected. Saul was chosen, and a sigh went up from those disappointed.
The Wanderer Page 9